J.P. Morgan Chase Suffers Major Trading Losses

[The High Heat]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304070304577396511420792008.html?mod=djemalertNEWS#articleTabs%3Darticle

 

The carnage continues.

 

I'm so fortunate my employer switched my pension plan to J.P. Morgan just a few months ago. Oh well, it's not like I was ever, ever going to be able to retire anyway.

[IRememberDBoon]

jamie dimon is a doucheroquet

[HungryHippo]

This news saddens me. I feel terrible when bad things happen to good people. Anyone else considering sending them a small donation to help comfort them in their time of need? I'm sure the government will be more than willing to direct some of our tax money to them as well.

[KevinG]

Let's hear it for the degradation of the banking industry! I say we need more deregulation! Seems to be working just fine for JP Morgan, and its investors.

 

Mitt 2012!

[ih8music]

They're job creators, you know.

[Sparky speaks]

It was not all deregulation. It was the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the idea that these banks should be bailed out by the government with billions of tax dollars when they should have been allowed to fail like any other business that screws up. Credit default swaps, derivatives, liar loans and all the other games they played contributed to this crisis which is far from over. Bank of America is next. What you see going on in Europe will soon be on shores and a lot worse than what is happening there. We should do what Iceland did. No government bailouts. If we did that in 2008 we would well on the way to recovery but the current crop of government leaders are in the pockets of these banking terrorists. You reap what you sow.

 

Bankers unmasked: Lessons From Iceland

 

 

The most important lesson was that banks, if allowed to grow without limit, knowing that bad decisions can be passed on to others, will ultimately destroy the country:

As everybody knows now, we did not pump public money into the failed banks.

We treated them like private companies that went bankrupt, and we let them fail.

Some people say we did it because we didn't have any other option; there is clearly something in that argument, but it does not change the fact that it turned out to be a wise move....

 

Whereas in many other countries, the prevailing orthodoxy is you pump public money into banks and you make taxpayers responsible for the banks in the long run

, and somehow treat the banks as if they are holier institutions in the economy than manufacturing companies, commercial companies, IT companies, or whatever. And I have never really understood the argument: why a private bank or financial fund is somehow holier for the well-being and future of the economy than the industrial sector, the IT sector, the creative sector, or the manufacturing sector....

 

But there were other issues at stake as well.

What the British and the Dutch were arguing was that somehow the European banking system was such that a private bank would operate anywhere in Europe, and if it succeeded, the bankers got extraordinary benefits, the shareholders got big profits.

But if it failed, the bill would simply be sent to ordinary people back home: farmers and fishermen, nurses and teachers, young people and old. And that, I maintain, is a very unhealthy formula for the future of the European banking system. If you sent a signal to the bankers that you can be as irresponsible and daring as you want to be, and if you are lucky, you become very rich, but if you fail, other people will pay.

That is the lesson learned from Iceland. By going it alone, against the pressures of common orthodoxy about big banks and their alleged essential role in modern economies, Grimsson is now enjoying the fruits of his decision. The economy is growing, he is thumbing his nose at establishment economists like Paul Krugman who took him to task for his decision, and is especially enjoying increased popularity by being asked to run again for the presidency in June.

 

 

http://vimeo.com/41954094